Television recycling hits a wall in Franklin County
Wilda Shoop, Shippensburg, is carted in, along with an old TV, to Southampton Township’s regional electronic recycling collection event on Saturday. Shoop was not, however, left with the old monitors, keyboards and other electronics. (Photo: Ryan Blackwell, Public Opinion)
(Undated) — Washington Township has pulled the plug on recycling televisions and electronics for outsiders.
The recycling center at 12721 Buchanan Trail East, Waynesboro, started on Monday to take electronic devices from Washington Township residents only. The township closed the door to others after a three-month run of free electronics recycling.
“I’ve got freaking TVs wall-to-wall in the warehouse and outside the warehouse,” township Manager Jeffrey Geesaman said. “The state needs to recognize it’s a crisis, and nobody wants to help. We can’t spend the time doing this for the entire county. The program is way too big for us to run for all of Franklin County.”
Franklin County’s lone electronics recycling program has been on-again, off-again in recent years.
Pennsylvania’s Covered Device Recycling Act of 2010 forbids discarding electronics in landfills. Thrift stores and even bulky item collections would not accept electronics. Televisions have discarded on country roadsides and in clothing donation bins.
Washington Township has caught people trying to get rid of televisions in the township’s brush pile and trash pit, Geeseman said. The township has notified the offenders and required them to return and take back their television sets.
The state electronics recycling law requires that manufacturers provide recycling programs for the electronics they sell in Pennsylvania. For every pound of new electronics, they must handle a pound of old electronics for recycling. Old electronics, especially televisions and computer screens, weigh much more than their replacements.
A bill (Senate Bill 800) proposing to remedy the situation has been in the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee since June. A hearing was held in October.
The current volume at the recycling center indicates that the people were unwilling to pay to have their old electronics recycled, according to Geesaman.
When the township started charging for recycling old electronics, the volume was cut in half. A small cathode ray television cost a consumer about $25 to recycle. When free electronics recycling returned, the high level of recycling returned.
“We can’t spend our time and money and dedicate our assets to doing this for the rest of the county,” Geesaman said. “It could literally be a full-time job.”
Each television must be handled two or three times, weighed, loaded onto pallets and wrapped in bubble wrap, he said.
“If any municipality or the county would like to start their own program, Washington Township will be glad to offer any assistance we can to help you do so,” Geesaman said.
Recycling companies are willing to take old electronics in bulk, he said.
Electronic waste is hazardous to public health and often contains lead, cadmium and mercury.
When Washington Township offered free recycling, people dropped off 142 tons of electronics in 2013, 159 tons in 2014 and 132 tons in 2015. When the township charged for taking out-of-township electronics, people left just 73 tons in 2017.
The recycling center on Feb. 1 reopened its free electronics recycling to Pennsylvania residents, who dropped off 27 tons of televisions and electronics in three months.
This story comes to us through a partnership between WITF and The Chambersburg Public Opinion.
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